This document relates to information processing.
The Internet enables access to a wide variety of web documents, e.g., video and/or audio files, web pages for particular subjects, news articles, etc. Such access to these web documents has likewise enabled opportunities for targeted advertising. For example, web documents of particular interest to a user can be identified by a search engine in response to a user query. The query can include one or more search terms, and the search engine can identify and, optionally, rank the web documents based on the search terms in the query and present the web documents to the user (e.g., according to the rank). This query can also be an indicator of the type of information of interest to the user. By comparing the user query to a list of queries and keywords specified by an advertiser, it is possible to provide targeted advertisements to the user. The targeted advertisements can include links to landing pages, and the selection of a link can cause the landing page to be displayed on a web browsing device.
Advertisers typically attempt to anticipate the specific queries submitted by users that may be related to the advertiser's product or service offered. The keywords specified by advertisers can include keywords related to the product or service offered by the advertiser. These keywords can be broadly matched to the product or service offered by the advertiser, e.g., the keyword “flower” may broadly match to “florist” in a web document. Such broad matching can, however, produce less than desirable results (e.g., fewer conversions). Additionally, an advertiser may not identify a particularly relevant keyword (referred to as a “missing keyword”). Thus, a query including a missing keyword may be deemed less relevant to the advertiser's content. Accordingly, specific queries for products may sometimes not result in the selection of advertisements linking to landing pages that are highly relevant to the query.